Pages tagged "Oil Sands and Energy"

The new Government of Alberta – following through on an election promise – has appointed a Royalty Review Panel to ensure Albertans get a fair price for their resources. As part of the review process the panel is encouraging Albertans to visit letstalkroyalties.ca where they can answer questions, submit comments, and engage with the panel. Working people have an enormous stake in these discussions. This is our opportunity to encourage the government to negotiate on our behalf to get the best possible framework for Albertans. We may never have another chance again, as panel chair Dave Mowat is on record saying that “we might never have another royalty review again.”

Urgent Action

People versus Profiteers: Demanding justice and equity

The Parkland Institute’s Annual Fall Conference will explore why, at a time of remarkable wealth production, the money seems to be skewing in very particular directions and away from many groups (full-time, part-time, casual workers; women and minorities; the abjectly poor and disabled outside altogether of labour markets, etc.) and towards a small minority; and what can and should be done about it.

WHEN: November 21 – 23, 2014

WHERE: University of AlbertaCentennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS)

News

Energy East the wrong type of petroleum infrastructure

The recent application by TransCanada Pipelines to build a pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to the Maritimes is another example of infrastructure projects that will impoverish Canada.

By allowing oil companies to ship low-value product, it will undermine the economic viability of upgrading here in Canada and potentially put Canadians out of work.

“The Energy East pipeline won’t bring Alberta oil to eastern refineries – instead it will channel that oil right past Canadian refineries on the way to foreign markets,” AFL president Gil McGowan said. “The closest that Energy East will get to a Canadian refinery is the Irving Refinery in New Brunswick, but even there, oil transported on the pipeline will not go to the refinery itself; instead it will be delivered to a new oil export terminal.”

Through research and advocacy, the Alberta Federation of Labour is engaged in a campaign to encourage the public, media and government to look more closely at the claims being made by proponents of the pipeline, including the current Premiers of Alberta and New Brunswick.

“Despite all the rhetoric and the spin, it’s clear that Energy East is not a ‘nation building’ project. Instead, it is yet another in a long line of projects aimed to perpetuating the ‘rip-it-and-ship-it’ approach that has characterized Canada’s resource sector for too long,” McGowan said.

Immigration – and TFWP – must remain a federal responsibility

Thousands of companies misusing the Temporary Foreign Worker program, uncovered by the Alberta Federation of Labour, prove that the program should remain a federal responsibility.

Documents obtained under freedom of information requests show that in 2013 there were more than 2,000 businesses nationwide whose workforces were more than 30 per cent TFWs – the majority of which were in Alberta. In the same year, more than 1,000 businesses had workforces that were more than 50 per cent TFWs. Again, the majority of these were in Alberta.

“If people are coming to Canada to work here, they should have the right to stay here. And that means immigration, not a ‘temporary’ status,” AFL president Gil McGowan said. “If someone is coming to Canada to work, whatever part of the country they move to first, they should have the right to move to other parts of the country if they so choose. That won’t happen if provincial governments are setting up their own separate ‘temporary’ programs.”

The list also raises serious concerns about the role being played by foreign state-owned corporations in the oil sands. More than half of the workers employed in Alberta by companies like Sinopec (a state-owned oil corporation from China) and Samjin (a subsidiary of Korea’s national oil company) are TFWs.

“The Government of Alberta has – pressured by business groups – floated the idea of taking over management of the TFW program from Ottawa. If that ever took place, it would be a disaster for Canadians and Immigrants alike,” McGowan said.

Did you know ...

Over the past 40 years, the average Canadian on minimum wage has only seen their hourly pay increase by one penny.

86 per cent of Canadian families will see no benefit at all from income-splitting.

Only 19 per cent of Alberta children 0-5 have access to a regulated child care space.

Alberta is 2nd-last among Canadian provinces for number of regulated spaces per child. Only Saskatchewan has fewer regulated spaces per child.

The report, entitled “Upgrading Our Future: The Economics of In-Province Upgrading,” was released on Monday, Oct. 6, at an event featuring Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan; representatives of two separate companies with proposals to build refineries in Ontario and BC; and the report’s author, Ed Osterwald, an internationally recognized energy expert and senior partner with UK-based Competition Economists Group (CEG).

Edmonton — A new, comprehensive report on the economics of upgrading and refining in Western Canada shows that an integrated upgrader-and-refinery plant would be highly profitable if it were built in Alberta today.

The report, entitled “Upgrading Our Future: The Economics of In-Province Upgrading,” was released on Monday, Oct. 6, at an event featuring Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan; representatives of two separate companies with proposals to build refineries in Ontario and BC; Ed Osterwald, an internationally recognized energy expert and senior partner with UK-based Competition Economists Group (CEG).

“Today, we’ve proven to Albertans that it makes economic sense to think like owners of the oil sands, and keep good jobs here,” McGowan said. ”Albertans should get the maximum value out of the resources they own. Doing so creates more jobs and wealth. It just makes sense for us as a province, and for us as a country.”

The report updates a 2006 study commissioned for the Government of Alberta’s Hydrocarbon Upgrading Task Force. [2006 HUTF study by David Netzer] By applying today’s costs and prices to the 2006 study, Ed Osterwald, an internationally recognized energy expert and senior partner with UK-based Competition Economists Group (CEG), who wrote the report jointly with fellow CEG partner Salman Nissan.

“There is an emerging consensus on the need to add value to our natural resources before they get shipped overseas,” McGowan said.

Among the participants in the release of the report was former federal international trade minister and former Alberta treasurer Stockwell Day, who has recently joined the advisory board of Pacific Future Energy, a BC-based company proposing a $10 billion oil sands refinery in northern British Columbia. Day will join the proceedings via teleconference.

“We support efforts like Pacific Future Energy, who are clearly looking to expand Canadian manufacturing and the good jobs that go with it,” McGowan said. ”Some might call it strange bedfellows, we call it a coalition of common sense. We’re delighted that there are leaders in the private sector committed to keeping good, long-term, middle-class, family-sustaining jobs in Canada.”

Canadians deserve transparency, but Harper Government making it easier to hide TFW abuses

Edmonton – In the wake of a series of scandals that have seen Canadians losing their jobs to exploited and underpaid workers from overseas — most recently 65 workers at Imperial Oil’s Kearl Lake oilsands site — the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) is calling for a sunshine list to expose abuses of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP).

“Canadians deserve transparency, especially when there are clear examples of Canadians losing good jobs because of this Program,” Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan said. “However, even as Canadians have been outraged by the latest example of Canadians losing their jobs because of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, the government has made moves to make sure future abuses of the program never come to light.”

Lists of employers who have been approved to hire workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program obtained through access to information requests have been a primary source for Canadians and journalists to uncover details about the Program. The officials overseeing these requests have recently imposed stringent new guidelines that have led to up to half those lists being redacted.

“We don't know — and as the government closes ranks around access to information with respect to TFWs, we may never know — how many Canadians are being displaced by the Temporary Foreign Worker program,” McGowan said.

On Tuesday, Feb. 4, 65 Ironworkers employed by Pacer-Promec Joint Ventures at Imperial Oil’s Kearl Lake oilsands site were told they were no longer employed there. Their jobs were then taken over by Temporary Foreign Workers earning about half what they had been making.

“The Government has now made abuses like the one we saw last week easier to get away with,” McGowan said. “The sixty five Canadian workers who lost their jobs last week are just the tip of the iceberg. And rather than giving Canadians the public inquiry they deserve, the government is putting up roadblocks to make it harder to investigate the program.”

Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Minister of Employment and Social Development Jason Kenney have made pledges to rein in the abuses of the Temporary Foreign Worker program. In a letter to Minister Kenney, the Alberta Federation of Labour called on the conservative government to commit to three actions that would bring more transparency on the Temporary Foreign Worker program:

Make available a full list of all employers holding a work permit for a Temporary Foreign Worker. In technical terms, this means an online searchable database of all active Labour Market Opinions (LMOs), Accelerated Labour Market Opinions (ALMOs), and employers using the Alberta Pilot Project or any Pilot Projects being test-driven in other provinces, along with number of workers, job classifications and base wages.

Publish a database of primary worksites where Temporary Foreign Workers are employed.

“Let’s let the sun shine on this program,” McGowan said. “Many employers who are not abusing the program are put at a disadvantage by the lack of transparency around this program. I would think they would welcome our proposal.”

Edmonton – In a press release on Feb. 6, 2014, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) made a mistake in how it identified the employer that had fired 65 Canadian iron workers at Imperial Oil’s Kearle Lake oil sands project. The correct name of the employer, as listed on the pay stubs of the affected employees, was Pacer-Promec Joint Venture (PPJV). This company is a joint venture between Alberta-based Pacer and a Quebec-based Promec.

The Alberta Federation of Labour apologizes for the confusion, and any harm this might have caused to Alberta-based Pacer Corporation.

Employers are becoming emboldened as Harper Government continues to turn a blind eye to abuse of TFW program

Edmonton – The time has come for Canadian construction workers to express their outrage at the Harper Government’s temporary foreign worker program (TFWP), which is being increasingly used by employers to displace Canadians and replace them with vulnerable and exploitable foreign workers, says Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan.

“The construction industry in Northern Alberta generates some of the best jobs in Canada,” McGowan said. “But increasingly – instead of being filled by Canadians – those jobs are being given to temporary foreign workers earning as little as half the prevailing wage. Stephen Harper says he won’t tolerate abuse of the TFW program but the reality is that employers are simply using the program the way it was designed to be used and that is to undercut Canadians. When it comes to the TFWP, Stephen Harper is the walking, talking definition of hypocrisy.”

McGowan’s comments came in response to news that 65 Canadian ironworkers, working for a Alberta-based company called Pacer Promec Joint Venture on Imperial Oil’s Kearle Lake oil sands project, were laid off on Tuesday, Feb. 4, and replaced by TFWs from Croatia who are being paid only $18 / hour – less than half the prevailing wage earned by Canadians doing the same work.

McGowan will be available for comment in Calgary at 2:15 p.m. at the Air Canada departure level. Reporters interested in talking with the ironworkers who were displaced can contact Ironworkers Local 720 Business Manager Harry Tostowaryk at 780-482-0720.